


Sudden Stop

by Ohfauna



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Decapitation, Gen, Haruno Sakura-centric, Hatake Kakashi is a Bad Teacher bc it follows canon, Hurt No Comfort, Not Beta Read, Shock, This might count as, also probably a little in shock, naruto and his issues pertaining to forming quick attachments bc of his childhood, not a good fic for those who like sasuke kakashi and naruto, sakura is mad, this follows canon somewhat it could probably fit in there i just have no clue where
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28576518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ohfauna/pseuds/Ohfauna
Summary: He knows they're tailing him. It's no surprise to him that when night is halfway through, they attack his camp. He's prepared to leave them lying there. They'll never follow him again.----They seal the head into the scroll. Sakura is beyond relieved they kept her ribbon around his eyes.---Naruto cant even look at her. How could she do that? Didn't team seven mean anything to her?
Relationships: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Haruno Sakura, Haruno Sakura & Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 10
Kudos: 206





	Sudden Stop

**Author's Note:**

> This was written while i was apathetic to everything so it comes off weird but i wrote it and finished and polished it so ill post it. This is somewhere after Sakura is a bit more powerful but while they still want to get Sasuke. I haven't watched Naruto since 2017 so i don't remember if that timeline actually works. Go with it for me thoe.

Drilled into her head years ago was the phrase: what's present? It was a reminder that after a battle you could still lose. No one to fight later meant a battle won but the war lost and the battles were, of course, nothing but a means to an end.

So, she looks. She smells. She tastes. She feels. She listens.

She sees a body, 20 meters away, lying limp beneath the tree it's hit.

She smells the stench of burning flesh, despite her having healed the hole put in her stomach by an electrified hand. She also smells, distantly, scents that are no doubt the others of their rag tag team. Something like soup, and wet dog, and wood shavings, and wet ink.

She tastes blood from- when in a desperate attempt to create space- she'd reached forward and ripped as much of his throat as she could with her teeth. _Not a first option in any fight, but he’d always made her feel desperate to prove herself._

She feels sticky and cold. The blood that's dried on her is a poor replacement for the clothes that have been burnt or cut off as a result of their fight. The little mesh armor and wrappings that remain feel more like décor than anything else.

She listens and, there, footsteps, dripping blood, rustling grass.

Considering her surroundings helps, to a point, ground her at least. It completely fails to calm her, however, considering she now has to come to terms with Sasuke's **_-detached-_ **head between her knees, ripped cloth over his eyes _(she feared them: Though, the eyes less so than what he had attempted with them)._ His body is still where it's lain since she'd had... decapitated him. Beneath a dented tree, limp and broken.

She hadn't meant to, is the part that really gets to her, she thinks.

It'd been to allow her to get away. Wait for Naruto to talk him down again, or to irritate him into leaving. Wait for Sai to provide the perfect distraction. Wait for either Kakashi or even Yamato to subdue him, then all of them would jump in- together. Instead, she'd had some panic response. Let instinct and i-want-to-live desperation take over a little too much.

It was an awkward move in the first place. It had been quick.

She went to kick him but he grabbed her leg, so she brought the other to kick against his chest, but then he looked at her, and from the corner of her eye _~~-don't make eye contact don't make eye contact don't-~~ _she’d seen the cold black turn to a vicious _red_ and the foot that was meant to kick his chest caught his chin and neck. And that was it.

Was he not expecting her to retaliate in such a way? _Of course he wasn't_ , she thinks. Had he not learned the strength she was able to imbue herself with? He had never believed she could kill him.

_She forgot sometimes that despite their powers, they were delicate. Human._

_As a medic she should have known that better than anyone._

She'd laid there after, head in her hands, waiting. As though the body would stand and stumble and search for it's brain for guidance. Or for its eyes that gave the body value.

**But it had lain there. Broken and bloody and dead.**

She moved maybe a foot, to tie the ribbon across his eyes and to push the cursed thing off her own lap, with contradictory gentleness, into the grass. She still kept it near her though, the remaining paranoia that it'd manage to reanimate was haunting and not as far fetched as she'd like it to be.

She wasn't alone for much longer. There was the arrival of 4 chakra signatures, the smells and the footsteps she'd taken in earlier, all widely varying but familiar. Back then, from the false trails and other nin disguised as Sasuke they had ran after. Still, she ignored them and stared blankly at the distant body. She felt as though taking her eyes off would incite something, and though she didn't know what, she feared it. There were muffled words and exclamations behind her, but she couldn't bear to turn. These were familiar people and her training told her not to waste energy on turning around. It was a good excuse to stay where she was, at least.

The entire event felt wrong. The fight between her and Sasuke had lasted hours. From pitch black sky to now: nearly noon. How could that have all ended with an unintentional move? One that had taken but a second, no less. He had come close to killing her and her team no less than a dozen times and yet...she alone had killed him. No, there must be more to it. Perhaps it's a clone, or maybe she's trapped in another unbearable genjutsu. Or maybe. He's gone.

And?

Staring at the body will do nothing. It's been at least half an hour since she killed him. She spares a glance at the head a foot away, now pale and already faded looking. She takes a deep breath and stands shakily. An arm comes from beside her to gently help her up. She leans into it.

"What happened?" Yamato is quiet and gentle and careful not to disturb the somber atmosphere. She shakes her head as though the fight will disappear from it.

"It wasn't even intentional." She laughs, feeling half dazed. "Years of- of- this rivalry and looking at me like a pest and him chasing after him and I killed him!" She definitely feels hysterical. Why? A voice murmurs inside her head. He was a traitor. An obstacle. He was a threat.

But he was also the favorite student. The best friend. The last Uchiha. _It isn't killing him I'm so afraid of_ , she realizes, _it's the consequences_. Naruto has been silent since they arrived, which only goes to prove her train of thought.

"I'm sorry." She's not. "I know- I know he meant something to you. I know you wanted to- to save him." Even at the cost of anyone else, including herself, she doesn't add. The blond she directed her apology towards looks at her and stares.

"I- I don't know what to feel. It was a fight and this happens, I know. It was life or death, it always is with him. It feels like I let him down myself somehow." Naruto kneels by the head and lays a scroll next to it. A few hand signs later, the head is gone with no trace to mark back to it. "Tell me this at least...would he have killed you, do you think, if you haven't killed him?" His blue eyes are teary. His voice has a wobble behind it.

Suddenly, or maybe not so, she's angry. The fear and shock had left and in its place rage had spilled in like some valve has broken. "Would he have....would he have killed me? What the hell do you mean 'would he have killed you' ? I thought that'd be obvious after about the fourth time he used an assassination technique on me! Or after he cut me open and left me in the middle of nowhere! He's killed me over and over and over and- and fucking over and over again and you want to ask me if I was what- too harsh? I didn't even mean it! But he sure as hell deserved it! It should have been done earlier!" And she can feel it, a peak of anger that's been held down for so long it's had time to change into something overly sharp. "He's-he was a traitor and should have been hunted down the moment he killed a konoha nin and attempted to kill several more! He deserved what he got and-" oh no, maybe she can blame it on the shock? "I'm glad I dealt the last blow. I hope he feared it, the bastard." There's a silence. Heavy and tense and her anger lingers. There's no regret to her words. No guilt no want to apologize. Her team has been trying to save the life of a man who held so little regard for her he spent the minimum time to kill her. Never even staying long enough to check for a pulse or a twitch. He'd put her down and left without a second glance.

~~And they wanted to save him.~~

"You can't-!'' Naruto is stopped by Kakashi's hand on his shoulder. She wonders if the man who she never really could call a teacher will pull some sort of responsibility card out of his ass now. She remembers suddenly, through her red gaze, Yamato close beside her and takes 3 large steps away. His hand twitches, she notes, to reach out- for comfort or confinement? It doesn't matter.

Something changed. Everything's shifted perspective.

"For what it's worth, I think Sakura has a point at this time." Everyone spares a glance at Sai, who seems to be bordering discomfort and curiosity beneath the apathy. "We have protected a traitor who's done nothing good, for the sake of a team that lasted, what was it, under a year?”

“You don't get it,” Naruto looks angrier than she's ever seen him. “We were family!”

“We weren't a family. You were just desperate for one.” Oops. That was her own voice. Well, she's past being amiable now. Might as well say what's been on her mind.

“Her emotions are quite understandable." Sai says, _even to me_ , he doesn't add.

It feels like picking sides. Kakashi and Naruto stand closer to the direction of the body, Sai seems to catch wind of the tension, takes the steps to be nearer to Sakura. Yamato still stands where she had first been sitting, looking between the four of them with something like extreme discomfort and a desperate wanting to cool down the situation.

“Well,” Yamato begins. “He was supposed to be brought back to Konoha alive, but on the other hand we were to stop him with any force necessary. You left his yes intact, so coming from a mission standpoint you didn't do anything you weren't supposed to.” She stares at him. “Ah, what I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry Naruto but at least this means our mission is complete.” Kakashi shifts and finally says something.

“Sakura. Didn't I teach you that your comrades are more important than any mission? We wanted to save him above al-” She doesn't turn to face him properly. She's still looking at the spot where the head was.

“You didn't teach me shit, except that I wasn't as important. And my comrades are leaf ninja. Which Sasuke was not.” What a silence. Tense and dangerous feeling. The hair on the back of her neck is standing. _She doesn't feel secure with them._

There's no more to be done here. They put the body in a separate scroll than the head. They gather their things. They go to Sasuke's camp and collect anything the think they might need to take back. Burn everything else, much to Naruto's frustration. 

The trip back to Konoha is tense, to say the least. They’re all spread out and quiet. Kakashi and Naruto converse in hushed tones on occasion from the front, spare her occasional glances. She refuses to be cowed. They arrive eventually, several hours straight there at almost top speed. They each go their separate ways, except Naruto who follows Kakashi to Hokage tower along who holds the sealed scrolls. She goes home. Fills out a report, showers, and crawls into bed with a sense of something heavy in her chest. 

The next morning she digs out the old papers from her closet, the ones she looks at when hit with a moment of awareness. She signs. And leaves them where Tsunade can't miss them.

**_...so by signing here you are petitioning the current hokage to officially disband your team, past missions credit will not be changed, however upcoming missions will no longer give credit to your team even when completed by the same personnel..._ **

**_Team:_ 7**

**_Captain:_ Hatake Kakashi**

**_Print name of party petioning disband:_ Haruno Sakura**

**Author's Note:**

> Ill get back to my soul mark AU eventually


End file.
